Ted Heath & His Music - Big Band Percussion, Big Band Bash, Satin Saxes & Bouncing Brass (3 albums on 2 CDs, 1961-63)

To go into the new year with, it's party time with Ted Heath.  Not the classical music-loving UK Prime Minister of the early 70s, but the big band leader who lived from 1920 to 1969 and received a late-career boost from his association with Decca's Phase 4 Stereo imprint.  Ted Heath & His Music were officially formed in 1944, with Heath taking inspiration from wartime big bands such as Glenn Miller's.

By the early 60s, Ted Heath & His Music were hugely successful UK household names, and Decca-London Records had launched their new imprint to maximise on the emerging stereo technology, recording through a then cutting-edge ten (later twenty) channel console onto four-track tape.

Big Band Percussion was the first Ted Heath & His Music album to be released on Phase 4, taking full advantage of the stereo mix (check out the percussion solos on Drum Crazy) and featuring a neat selection of jazz standards and other well known and other big band and more exotic selections.  On this 1988 CD reissue, tracks 13-18 are taken from Side 2 of a later LP, Satin Saxes & Bouncing Brass.  But before that LP came out in 1963, there was Big Band Bash....

Big Band Percussion
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Big Band Bash is probably my favourite Ted Heath album, with tight, punchy performances throughout, a great tracklisting, and superb arrangements.  Check out the mellow I Don't Know Why and a cool Harlem Nocture for starters, enjoy a pleasingly bonkers take on Khatchaturian's Sabre Dance and much more.  I used to have a vinyl rip of Big Band Bash from an old easy listening blog - wish I could find those files now, it blew this CD master out the water.  But the CD does have Side 1 of Satin Saxes & Bouncing Brass as the bonus tracks (12-17).

Big Band Bash
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Anyway, that's enough of that terrible late-80s cover art from the CD reissues: below are the original LP covers of the three albums, in all their Phase 4 Stereo glory.  Any Nurse With Wound fans (specifically, fans of NWW vinyl EPs circa 2008) recognise the picture on Big Band Bash?

 

Michael Jones/David Darling - Amber (1987)

Pure mellow relaxation from Canadian pianist Michael Jones, with enough of an interesting edge from legendary ECM cellist David Darling to keep things from ever ending up dull.  Darling's overdubbed cello lines sometimes create rhythmic propulsion, as on the album opener Rainfall (where he's also the pianist), create Indian-sounding drones on Wu Wei (ditto), and generally flesh out the picture in engaging ways over Jones' spare, crystalline pianism. 

Darling plays ordinary cello and 4 and 8 string electric cello, as well as piano on the above two tracks and the lengthy Dreamlight (the haunting high point of the album for me), and occasional Fender Rhodes, hammered dulcimer and kalimba.  At this point you might wonder why Darling wasn't credited as the principal album artist with guest piano from Jones!  Perhaps Jones was the bigger draw to those who'd be interested in the record, having been with the new age label Narada Lotus for a few years already.

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David Darling previously posted at SGTG: The Sea, with Bjørnstad/Rypdal/Christensen

Merry Christmas!

Wishing you all an enjoyable and occasionally restful day.

If you fancy listening to something a bit odd (even odder than that Klaus Wunderlich album?), try the link below.  It's a charity shop find from a few months back - a self-released EP of some guy who plays wine glasses.  Half classical, half Christmassy tunes.

Sergey Karamyshev - Air
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Klaus Wunderlich - Jingle Bells (1987)

Well, I did say on Friday that George Winston's December wasn't just some scholcky record for the holiday season... couldn't resist some nice festive schlock today though.  It's the best kind of festive schlock though, that comes in an almost fully segued suite of Wersi digital organs and synthesizers, in the capable hands of organ-botherer Klaus Wunderlich (1931-1997).

It's hard to explain the appeal that this album has to me; think it must just be the sound of the keyboards.  There's something beyond just mere cheese, something woozy and uncanny, almost a hallucinatory quality.  Like having the cold for Christmas and drinking too much cough syrup, and the Christmas tree dolls on the album cover start to come to life. Enjoy the ever-so-slightly-uneasy listening oddness.

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George Winston - December (1982)

Moving to something more appropriately festive for this post and the next couple, here's Montana-born pianist George Winston's third album, which was the followup to his breakthrough record Autumn.  The title of 'December' is a deft move that announces that this won't just be some schlocky record for the holiday season, with a dozen or so Christmas carols rendered on piano - Winston arranged a much more understated and satisfying suite of music than that.

When he does interpret carols, Winston goes for only two obvious ones - Carol Of The Bells, and The Holly And The Ivy.  Elsewhere his choices range from Jesus Rest Your Head, from 19th century Appalachia, to Alfred S. Burt's Some Children See Him, from 1951.  Winston's winterscape is then fleshed out by the rest of the programme, stretching from his own compositions Thanksgiving and Peace that bookend the album, to rearranged bits of classical music including Pachelbel's Canon.  Together it all works beautifully, adding up to the perfect 40-minute oasis of calm amongst the bustle of Christmas preparation.

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Thomas Tallis - The Lamentations Of Jeremiah (The Hilliard Ensemble, 1987)

Thought this would make a good follow-up to Current 93 - a nice wintry blast of renaissance polyphony, from the pen of Tallis (1505-1585), and sung in this September 1986 recording by the peerless Hilliard Ensemble.  The austere brilliance of the pure vocal blend reverberating around All Hallows Church, London, is of course perfectly captured by this ECM New Series recording, and the four voices nail each and every nuance of the interlocking lines.  Despite the album title, Tallis' Mass For Four Voices is arguably the highlight here, showing how deftly the composer could move with the times and the changing demands of the crown and the church, making utterly timeless music.

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Hilliard Ensemble previously posted at SGTG: Codex Speciálnik

Current 93 - Halo (2004)

A quintessential live album that does all the things it ought to: a great-sounding memento for fans, with a judicious setlist; and an accessible, stripped-down best-of for the curious.  Halo was my first Current 93 purchase, after a few years of absorbing Nurse With Wound albums - Thunder Perfect Mind in particular, which of course had a C93 'sister album' of the same name - where David Tibet's presence at the margins made me wonder what his own group were like.

Current 93's studio albums admittedly can take a bit of effort to love.  Tibet's voice does take a bit of getting used to, and his dreamlike, Hermetic lyrics can sometimes feel impenetrable.  For this London concert from October 2003, though, the highlights of the very best Current 93 records (arguably their 1992-1998 run) were well chosen and beautifully rendered.  It was released the following year as Halo, with the album cover a tribute to the Moody Blues' Every Good Boy Deserves Favour as painted by Tibet.

For most of the concert, the pared-back instrumentation, based around piano, guitar, cello and woodwinds, and the clarity of Tibet's voice offer a more welcoming path into songs that sometimes get obscured in the originals by the production.  The more natural acoustic sound works well, and nudges them closer to the Incredible String Band than on any prior efforts.  The scaling back of the title track from Sleep Has His House from a 20-minute harmonium drone to three minutes of piano and voice makes Tibet's tribute to his late father heartbreakingly effective - just one example of how well C93 work in a simplified live setting.  Then, for the closing songs, they dig the farthest back into their catalogue and add in more electronic effects for a truly memorable and harrowing ending.  If you own one Current 93 album, make it this one.

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Ólafur Arnalds - ...And They Have Escaped The Weight Of Darkness (2010)

Looking forward to my favourite albums from the Erased Tapes label living their best life over the coming winter months, so here's something from Ólafur Arnalds, in his second album.  Still in his early twenties when this album was put together, the former thrash metal drummer and Sigur Ros touring musician solidified his modern classical thumbprint here.

Mostly based around piano and strings, a lot of this will immediately appeal to fans of the late Jóhann Jóhannsson, although with subtler use of electronics here (check Gleypa Okkur for about the only incidence); Arnalds at this point was more interested in simple melodies and understated scoring.  It never becomes too sacchrine or dull though, and does have moments when you can tell this is someone with a rock background, as on the aforementioned track or in the drums on Tunglið (which reminds me of sometime labelmate Ben Lukas Boysen a bit).  Gorgeous Icelandic chilliness all round.

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Previously posted at SGTG: Collaborative Works with Nils Frahm

Intersystems - Peachy (1967)

Just over half an hour of gleefully morbid insanity from Canadian avant-gardist John Mills-Cockell and his Intersystems compatriots.  This was their second of three albums, and showed a growing influence of musique concrete and Cageian absurdity.  Over a backdrop of tape-manipulated percussive noises, electronics and occasional gloomy organ, performance poet Blake Parker narrates increasingly bizarre versions of a story about two men finding a cave full of guns.

A striking and pioneering record (it really feels like it belongs in the mid-70s, contemporaneous with prime Residents, but this was '67), Peachy sounds like it would've made Intersystems a shoo-in for the Nurse With Wound List.  In fact, just checked and I was surprised they weren't there.  Perhaps no copies of their original LPs found their way to the UK; had any turned up in a 70s London record shop, surely Stapleton would've sniffed them out like a bloodhound.

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Ahmad Jamal Trio - The Awakening (1970)

Lovely little trio date from a great pianist who's still around today.  Ahmad Jamal had been active for two decades when this album was recorded in February 1970, and had never quite got the level of critical acclaim that more famous pianists received, despite being championed by no less a figure than Miles Davis.  He surely deserved it though, and in the decades that followed The Awakening would grow in stature and become a staple for hip hop sampling.

Seven tracks here, with Jamal ably backed by bassist Jamil Nasser and drummer Frank Gant.  Lots to love, not least the gorgeous title track penned by Jamal.  His understated, languid style might make this album sound like a laidback club date on a casual glance, but just under the surface there's a formidable talent able to pull off tricksier runs without disturbing the groove.  And the album closes with covers of the lead tracks from two of my absolute favourite jazz records of all time - Stolen Moments and Wave - what's not to love?

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Paul Dresher - This Same Temple (1996 compi, rec. 1981-85)

Great overview of some of Paul Dresher's earliest works, as compiled by Lovely Music.  Like Dark Blue Circumstance and Casa Vecchia, Dresher's take on Fripp/Pinhas/Gottsching guitartronics is represented, this time by Liquid And Stellar Music.  This stunning 20-minute track, which opens proceedings here, evolves from ambient drift to echo-delay tour de force, and was originally released on Dresher's debut cassette release in 1981.

Next up is Destiny, a brief dance commission from 1983.  Dresher on guitar is accompanied by a drummer, and it's a very nice polyrhythmic oddity that sounds closer to Talking Heads or even the then-new King Crimson sound than anything else I've heard Dresher do so far.  Water Dreams, an electroacoustic/radiophonic piece from 1985 follows, constructed from rain sounds and other field recordings in a similar way to Other Fire from the Casa Vecchia disc.  Lastly, This Same Temple is one of Dresher's first ever compositions from 1977, a piano duet that he admits had a significant Steve Reich influence.  A different version of it originally appeared on the aforementioned cassette release in 1981.

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Pat Metheny Group - Offramp (1982)

The album that took the Pat Metheny Group to stardom was a new-sound album in more than one way.  Nana Vasconcelos, introduced on As Falls Wichita (see links below), returned to fill out the percussion sound with its Brazilian influence that would become more central to the PMG sound in the coming years.  Longtime bassist Steve Rodby also made his debut here, as did Pat's guitar synth.

That legendary Roland GR-300 sound makes its first appearance right from the start, in the brief opening track Baracole, over a nice thumping pulse from Vasconcelos.  Then it's straight into one of the most gorgeous mellow classics of this era, Are You Going With Me.  First led by Lyle Mays on a synth-harmonica sound, then by Pat on guitar synth, it's one of his sunny-day trips across the Midwest for the ages.  The Brazilian influence becomes even more explicit on Au Lait that closes out the album's first half, adding Vasconcelos' voice to the mix as Pat returns to clean guitar.

Side Two introduces more PMG classics to what is perhaps their quintessential album.  The upbeat Latin rhythm of Eighteen drives one of the most simply joyful pieces of music they ever recorded, and for maximum contrast the knottiest free jazz of the album comes next in the title track, devised as a tribute to Ornette Coleman.  Another tribute follows, this time a sweetly melodic one for James Taylor, before the album closes with the calm melancholy of The Bat Pt. II.  An utterly essential jazz fusion masterpiece from start to finish.

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Previously posted at SGTG:
First Circle
The Way Up
Pat Metheny at SGTG:
Watercolors
New Chautauqua 
As Falls Wichita (with Lyle Mays)
Song X (with Ornette Coleman)
and featuring Pat:
Dreams So Real
Shadows And Light
The Sound Of Summer Running

Costin Miereanu - Luna Cinese (1975)

Two wonderful, mindwarping slabs of avant-garde electronics and dark ambience from the Italian Cramps label (see also Tempo Furioso by Martin Davorin Jagodic).  Costin Miereanu was born in Bucharest in 1943, and has lived in France since the 70s, where as well as composing he's had a distinguished professorial career with students including Ana-Maria Avram.

Luna Cinese was his first album release, with the original LP sides titled 'Lato x opp. y' and 'Lato y opp. x' and the tracks themselves named Parte Prima (Seconda) and Parte Seconda (Prima).  The first track is a stunningly disorienting stew of electronic whines and bleeps overlaid with fragments of speech in different languages - and yep, Miereanu's on the Nurse With Wound List.  The deadpan delivery of what sounds like scientific experiments also brings to mind for me the very early films of David Cronenberg, and that font used by Cramps on their records also helps, very Stereo.

The second track is purely instrumental, with bits of flute and vibraphone floating around in the queasy-ambient smog as well as more electronics and some field recordings.  This one has a slight edge for me over the first track due to the sustained eerie atmosphere, but the whole album is essential if you like this sort of thing.

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Double Image - In Lands I Never Saw (1986)

Gorgeous, crystalline autumnal chimes from Double Image, in their third album.  By this time, the group that had formed in the 70s as a quartet with bass and drums (and recorded a rare, unreissued ECM LP in 1979) had slimmed down to just vibraphonist David Friedman and marimba player David Samuels.  The duo swap their instruments round on the track Dusk here, but otherwise stick to their stations for a wonderful record, that appropriately came out on Celestial Harmonies.

The pure sound of just the core instruments makes for a beautifully meditative album experience, only really raising the tempo on the opening title track and on Ki.  Everything interlocks with effortless virutosity, but never sacrificing melody.  Difficult to pick a favourite, but if I had to would be the late highlight Desert Rounds.  The eerie percussion added to Woodbell also makes it a memorable album closer.

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Previously posted on SGTG: Skylight, feat. David Samuels

Else Marie Pade - Face It (2002 compi of works rec. 1958-1970)

Danish electronics pioneer Else Marie Pade (1924-2016) featured early on in this blog with a great compilation of her work; here's another one.  Just three tracks on this collection, starting with Symphonie Magnétophonique, a 1958 musique concrete tape piece representing a typical day in 50s Copenhagen, from dawn to dusk.  Mixed in to this everday slice of life are subtle memories of Europe before the postwar peace, in sirens, screams and marching feet.

More of that later, but first the 43-minute centrepiece of the collection, a radioplay version of The Little Mermaid (1957/8).  It's narrated in Danish, but even for non-speakers there's a lot to admire in the pioneering backing track that Pade created for it.  Sampling distant sounds of music and concrete sounds to evoke the world above the sea, and processing sine waves and pure noise to represent the undersea world, Pade's soundtrack must've been pure magic to listen to when originally broadcast.  Reaching back into her childhood, when she envisioned fantastical sound-worlds from outside her room whilst ill, Pade was eminently qualified to conjure up a soundtrack like this.

She also had first-hand experience of the horrors of war to create the ominous memorial Face It (1970) that closes the album.  An incessant martial rhythm carries fragments of garbled speech, which gradually reveal their source and are processed further into distorted grotesques.  The narrated vocal loop, in Danish, translates as "We must face it, Hitler is not dead" - the final line, "...he lives on in Nixon" was censored by the record label.

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David Van Tieghem - Safety In Numbers (1987)

While I'm still in an 80s electronica kind of mood, here's something by Washington DC native David Van Tieghem.  Something of an everything-including-the-kitchen-sink percussion specialist, Van Tieghem has played on sessions for Steve Reich, Laurie Anderson, Talking Heads.... the list is endless.  His first solo album appeared on Warners in 1984 and has never been reissued; this is his second, which came out on Peter Baumann's Private Music label.

There's certainly plenty of odd percussive layers mixed in amongst the synths on Safety In Numbers, which elevate it from reasonably interesting 80s electronic album to something altogether more rewarding.  Van Tieghem is credited with, among, several other things, metal ashtrays, plastic tubes, soda cans, corrugated plastic hose and suchlike.  His main hardware appears to be Fairlights, with the long list also including DX7 and DX100, Akai S900, Korg Poly800 and a LinnDrum.

Some big name collaborators pop up too: Ryuchi Sakamoto on early highlight Thunder Lizard and on Clear; Tony Levin adds his distinctive Chapman Stick sound to Night Of The Cold Noses, and there's also a piano part for "Blue" Gene Tyranny on Crystals, another of the more relaxed highlights.  Another plus point for 80s artiness is that just over half of the tracks started life as dance commissions, amongst which Future and All Safe, for the Boston Ballet, are particular highlights for me.

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Edgar Froese - Pinnacles (1983)

One more Froese/TD for now.  This would be Froese's final solo album for several years, and was recorded just prior to Tangerine Dream's final album for Virgin.  So for a clear indication of what Froese contributed to the early 80s TD sound, look no further.

The inspiration for Pinnacles came from a trip to the deserts of Western Australia that Froese took in the early 80s, with the title alluding to a group of ancient petrified rocks that stand in the desert.  So this is Froese on walkabout, and even includes a track of that name.  First though are the bright, flowing sequences and brisk rhythms of Specific Gravity Of Smile.  The Light Cone comes next, one of my favourite Froese tracks with its beautifully simple melody and a touch of vocodered voice.

Walkabout is the track that sounds closest to the TD opus that was just around the corner, with a slight Eastern feel mixed in to its darker-hued sequence.  Then, as with Hyperborea, Pinnacles ends with a side-long epic.  This finale, the title track, starts off on another upbeat section before gradually petering out after seven minutes for a brief ambient interlude and more vocoder.  Another sequence then takes over, and eventually changes down a gear for a gorgeous melodic ending.  Just like Stuntman, this is absolutely classic Froese.

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Previously posted at SGTG:
Ages
Stuntman
Tangerine Dream at SGTG:
Phaedra (scroll past main post)
Encore
Force Majeure
Tangram
Logos: Live At The Dominion
Hyperborea

Bill Evans Trio - I Will Say Goodbye (rec. 1977, rel. 1980)

Posting Julia Hülsmann last week made me dive back into Bill Evans, and came up with a fresh appreciation of this album from Evans' final years.  Recorded in May 1977 with his latest trio of Eddie Gomez on bass and Eliot Zigmund on drums, I Will Say Goodbye wasn't released until 1980, when it became Evans' last album for the Fantasy label (he'd just signed to Warners).

The Michel Legrand-penned title track, performed twice on the album, would of course take on an added poignancy following Evans' death in September 1980, and it's a nice melancholy track to base this album around.  There are some great uptempo moments here, especially a fine take on Herbie Hancock's Dolphin Dance and sole original The Opener.  For the most part, though, the tight group improvisation of Evans' final trio shines best in their restrained moments, finishing on a gorgeous bit of Bacharach in A House Is Not A Home.

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Ernö Király - Phoenix: The Music Of Ernö Király (1996)

Essential introduction to Yugoslavian composer and instrument builder Ernö Király (1919-2007).  Whilst based in Novi Sad in the 60s, collecting folk music and soaking up modernist composition, Király was introduced by a friend to Edgard Varèse's Poeme Electronique.  This would be the spark that got Király into tape composition; later on, in the 70s, he would start building his own instruments a la Harry Partch, and write graphic scores for them.

Király's discography only starts in 1979, with just three Eastern European LPs appearing up until the mid 90s when ReR put out this CD that gave his music much-needed exposure.  The liner notes provide great biographical detail on Király's work and influences, which makes the omission of recording dates for these seven pieces all the more glaring - but given the aforementioned LPs, it's probably safe to say that everything here dates from the late 70s to the 90s.

The title track starts the album off with six minutes of reverberating swishing and hammering on a cymbalom (Hungarian zither), followed by Perpetuum Mobile for Király's modified version of the instrument, the zitherphone that he devised in 1974. That track's particularly interesting with what sounds like backwards tape at points - shame it's only three minutes long.  After a couple of string pieces with geometric scores, and a great voice/tape piece called Spiral, Acezantez show up (Király and Dutoni were good friends) for four Movements, the atmospheric highlights of the collection.  Another brief tape piece, The Sky, provides a memorable album closer.  Fascinating and unique stuff, and highly recommended.

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Tangerine Dream - Tangram (1980)

After the release of Stuntman (posted last Friday), Edgar Froese turned his attention back to Tangerine Dream.  A fresh lineup cemented around Froese, Franke and newbie Johannes Schmoelling, resetting the 'electronic trio' configuration that had ended on Peter Baumann's departure.  A couple of landmark concerts in East Berlin later, the revitalised group went into the studio for their first album.

The two-part Tangram was the result.  This wasn't the TD of old though, where a two-track album would mean spacey, liquid improvisation around mellotron and sequencers.  This is where, IMHO, the single most underrated TD lineup began in earnest as a sleek, melodic unit with updated electronics and much more structure to their longer pieces, almost like neoclassical movements.  Tangram Set One and Set Two move through the gears of eerie ambience to sparkling melodies and driving sequences without wasting a single note.  The version of TD that would go on to produce my absolute favourite live and studio Tangerine Dream albums was off to a flying start.

Tangram hits the record stores

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Julia Hülsmann Trio - Imprint (2011)

Bonn-born pianist Julia Hülsmann just returned with another quartet album that I've still to pick up, so been casting my mind back to when I first discovered her music.  Was browsing the ECM shelves of my favourite local haunt Record Shak, when I found myself drawn to the oddly haunting piano trio piece that was playing over the speaker.  It was (Go And Open) The Door, the midpoint highlight of the Julia Hülsmann Trio's Imprint, their newly-released second album for ECM.

Hülsmann's Bill Evans influence is much discussed, and for me this album still shows her innate harmonic impressionistic sketching at its finest, in deeply entwined improvisation with bassist Marc Muellbauer and drummer Heinrich Kobberling.  Equally at home in more uptempo tracks like Grand Canyon and the closing pair Zahlen Bitte/Who's Next and gorgeous ballads like A Light Left On and the old German showtune Kauf dir einen bunten Luftballon, Julia and partners produced a wonderful, engrossing hour of unshowy trio chemistry that's been ageing like fine wine over the last few years and will continue to do so.

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Paul Dresher - Casa Vecchia (1995)

Another Dresher collection, to follow on from his Dark Blue Circumstance disc a little while ago.  This one released by the Starkland label flips the focus of Circumstance, featuring just one work for string instruments; the three that precede it are all gorgeous, shimmering ambient drones.

Opening the album is Underground, a dance commission from 1982.  All the sounds are produced on an early Casio keyboard, fed into an equaliser and tape loop system.  The only downside of this beautiful piece is that it's only 8 minutes long - I'd quite happily listen to half an hour of it.  Other Fire (1984) that follows is a Fourth World-esque synthesis of field recordings made by Dresher in various travels across South/South East Asia a few years prior.  For this radiophonic commission, Dresher mixed his tapes using a harmonzier, EQ and the same tape loop system as Underground to great effect.

The tracks get progressively longer as the album goes on, giving Dresher's engrossing sound worlds more room to breathe.  After 11 minutes of Other Fire comes 16 minutes of Mirrors (1988-91), commissioned by bassist Robert Black.  Black performs it on double bass, electric upright bass and bass guitar, with electronic processing.  The haunting ambient drift at its outset eventually becomes a rhythmic delay tour de force that fans of Pinhas/Göttsching will absolutely love.  The title track closes the album in a string quartet that Dresher originally wrote for Kronos Quartet in 1982; this arrangement for double-quartet was the idea of Yuki Morimoto, whose Ensemble 9 group perform it here.  It's essential listening in the Adams/Reich vein, and the perfect ending to a hugely recommended collection.

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Egdar Froese - Stuntman (1979)

Following Ages (posted last Friday), Edgar Froese refocused his energies on Tangerine Dream for Cyclone and Force Majeure, then recorded his fifth solo album.  Stuntman saw a return to woozier, psychedelic electronica largely shedding the rhythmic drive of those other three albums.

The tracks were becomings shorter too, and the opening title track was a nice simple earworm that became Froese's only 7" single release.  The album then hits an early high point with the ten-minute sequencer journey It Would Be Like Samoa, and Detroit Snackbar Dreamer is just as good, bringing in the first truly percussive pulse halfway through. 

The second half of the album delves even deeper into psych-inflected atmospheres, with another multi-stage long track (Drunken Mozart In The Desert) ending more upbeat and melodic.  A Dali-Esque Sleep Fuse is another strong sequencer piece, before Scarlet Score For Mascalero ends the album on a slow, stately note with another gorgeous melody.  One of Froese's very best albums.

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Robyn Schulkowsky/Nils Petter Molvær - Hastening Westward (1995)

Here's something that goes nicely with darker and colder nights.  The starting point for this album was a reworking by American percussionist Robyn Schulkowsky of her 1991 work Hastening Westward At Sundown To Obtain A Better View Of Venus, that evocative title borrowed from Samuel Beckett.

The album contains two suites, with the three-part Pier And Ocean proving a nice overture to lead into the seven-part Hastening Westward.  As told in the liner notes, once Schulkowsky had recorded the three solo percussion sections that appear as tracks 3, 5 and 8, ECM's Manfred Eicher revealed that he just happened to have Nils Petter Molvær around, who could be a perfect partner for Schulkowsky's sound.

The trumpeter was brought in on day two of the sessions, and another in a long line of ECM's instant collaborations quickly took shape.  Molvær did indeed have the innate sensitivity to the overtones of Schulkowsky's drums, bells and bowed gongs that Eicher had anticipated, and the album pays great rewards to repeat listens.  Music for frozen fjords.

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Tibor Szemzö - The Other Shore (1999 compi, rec. 1992-97)

Hungarian musician & composer Tibor Szemzö previously featured here with his Snapshot From The Island album; this three-track collection switches out the bucolic, mellow atmosphere for a more melancholy journey.

First up is the title track, building gradually as string phrases from Szemzö's Gordian Knot Company ensemble punctuate the silence.  Chanting voices and restrained percussion enter, then a little bass guitar, to which Szemzö will eventually add bass flute.  Meanwhile, extracts of a Buddhist treatise, Sutra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Law, are recited in Japanese.  So far, so nicely mediative.

The second piece is Symultan, based around sampled voices from a Roma community and related field recordings, with a similar musical backing to the first track eventually taking shape.  It will be all the more affecting for those that understand the language - they're apparently talking about all that was lost to their community under fascism - but is still a striking work of very human melancholy without knowing the speech.  The album closes with Gull, an absolutely lovely work for string quartet and tabla.

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Edgar Froese - Ages (1978)

Epic double-length solo album from the late Tangerine Dream mainman, recorded in late '77.  TD had closed out the era of their most famous lineup with a live memento, and Ages looked forward to the late 70s, progressive rock-tinged TD with its more conventional rhythmic drive and a real drummer in Klaus Krüger.

Prior to his first appearance on a TD album, Krüger supported Froese in making this behemoth of a record, adding only a light touch of percussion in the first vinyl side.  These two tracks are Metropolis, a shimmering robot-march paying tribute to Fritz Lang, and the sequenced pulse of Era Of The Slaves.  Next up is the 21-minute epic Tropic Of Capricorn, taking in a grand opening theme, a classically-influenced section with some great piano, then a stately prog-like ending, fully backed up by Krüger.

The second LP of the orignal set is even more interesting and varied.  Nights Of Automatic Women barrels forward into the album's rockiest territory yet, anticipating most closely Cyclone-era TD, and Icarus finds Froese giving his guitar a welcome workout.  There's some sweetness and light in the album's back half too, with Ode To Granny A setting a repetitive, almost Cluster-like melody against a simple tambourine tap, and what sounds like an all-star krautrock jam in Pizzaro And Atahuallpa -  it's like a TD & Amon Düül summit played over the top of the pulse from Kraftwerk's Kristallo.  To cap everything off, Froese cranks up the guitar one more time for Golgotha And The Circle Closes.  More Froese next Friday.

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Iannis Xenakis - Evryali/Herma & Olivier Messian - Quatre Études De Rythme (Yuji Takahashi, 1976)

Knotty but immensely satisfying piano acrobatics from Japanese musician, conductor and composer Yuji Takahashi (b. 1938).  He'd studied under Iannis Xenakis in the early 60s, so was well placed to tackle Xenakis' two foremost pieces for solo piano that kick off this album.

Evryali (1973) is apparently impossible to play in full, and each interpreter has to decide how much of the piece they are able to take on.  Packed with gamelan influences, "stochastic clouds" and "polyphonic arborescences", it probably takes a PhD to fully understand, but is a blast to just listen to in its typically Xenakian insanity.  This is complemented by Herma (1962), dating from Takahashi's time with Xenakis, who dedicated it to him, and is based on set operations from Boolean algebra... nope, me neither.  Still great.

Olivier Messiaen's Four Rhythmic Studies date from 1949-50, with the 'Island Of Fire' pieces at the bookends inspired by melodies from Papua New Guinea.  In between, Messiaen experiments with numerical organisations of pitch, duration & timbre, and with Gregorian neumes, in a fascinating break from his usual concerns of naturalistic and spiritual wonder.  Takahashi excels again at this beautifully odd music, and the whole album sounds as pristine as you'd expect from a digital recording from 1976.  Yep, Denon had been pioneering PCM recording onto videotape for a full five years at this point.

link
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Iannis Xenakis at SGTG:
Phlegra, Jalons etc
Oresteïa
Synaphaï
Persephassa
Ata, Jonchaies etc
Pléiades/Psappha
Bohor etc
Kraanerg
Terretektorh/Nomos Gamma
La Légende D'Eer
Persepolis
Olivier Messiaen at SGTG:
Des Canyons Aux Étoiles
Turangalîla Symphony / L'ascension
Et Exspecto Resurrectionem Mortuorum, etc

Peeter Vähi - The Path To The Heart Of Asia (1992)

Superior New Age/world music/electronics suite from Estonian composer & musician Peeter Vähi, born 1955 in Tartu.  These ten 'Legends', plus a finale called Legend Zero, do pretty much what the album title suggests, in a continental tour taking in Cambodia, Vietnam, Taiwan and Turkey.

Vähi performs with several of the participants from the Orient 92 music festival that took place in Tallinn: a Cambodian flautist playing in circular breathing on the opener and vocalist on the Khmer folk tune of Legend Three, a Taiwanese group on Four, Tuvinian overtone singers on Five and Eight, and so on until the appearance of a South-Siberian shaman on Ten.  This might not have worked in lesser hands, and could've been a bit of a pretentious gloop, but it's all extremely well produced, in a spare, austere sound with additional keyboards and percussion from Vähi only when necessary.  Highly listenable and recommended.

link
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Arild Andersen Quartet - Green Shading Into Blue (1978)

The follow-up to the gorgeous Shimri (link below) found Arild Andersen's quartet still as light and refreshing as an autumn breeze, but capable of channelling more blustery weather as well.  Sole hits a wonderfully light groove, with Lars Jansson judiciously introducing electronic keys for the first time.  The Guitarist really ought to have been named The Flautist, and is a serene breathing space before the next lengthy track, Jansson's Anima.  Juhani Aaltonen switches back to sax for some of his most firey playing on the album, whilst Jansson and Andersen provide mellower interludes.

Side Two kicks off with a groovy tribute to Andersen's partner of the time, Radka Toneff, before settling down into the rural twilight of the album cover.  The title track finds Jansson back on understated synth, as Andersen, rock-solid as ever, leads the way for Aaltonen's sax.  The home stretch of Jana is an upbeat drive home as the last light fades, capping off a typically gorgeous and evocative Andersen album.

link
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Previously posted at SGTG:
Shimri
Molde Concert
and featuring Arild Andersen:
Afric Pepperbird
Triptykon
Popofoni
In Line
Bluish

Nurse With Wound - A Sucked Orange/Scrag (2012 reiss of compis from 1989 & 87)

A clearout exercise by Steven Stapleton, in which piles of tape offcuts destined for the bin were salvaged at a friend's suggestion and released in a Faust Tapes-style random collage.  The first attempt at this appeared in 1987 as a 28-minute cassette entitled Scrag, which wouldn't be digitally reissued until this double-CD edition in 2012.  Stapleton then fleshed out the concept to album-length in 1990, and called it A Sucked Orange, with one of his most eye-popping, memorable album covers.

The "bits and bobs" of tape were often worn and frayed from experimental abuse undertaken in the process of creating the early NWW records. Indeed, anyone familiar with Homotopy To Marie, Sylvie & Babs and Spiral Insana will recognise the sound of these albums starting to come together in occasional fragments.  Elsewhere, Stapleton has a go at a Steve Reich-esque tape phase experiment with a fragment of Trout Mask Replica, records various friends singing (or attempting to, and fluffing it), and much more.  In the end, he managed to create not just an outtakes compilation but a thoroughly enjoyable Nurse With Wound album in its own right from detritus that was about to end up as landfill.

Disc 1 (A Sucked Orange) link
Disc 2 (Scrag) link
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Previously posted at SGTG:
To The Quiet Men From A Tiny Girl
Merzbild Schwet
Insect And Individual Silenced
Homotopy To Marie
Gyllensköld, Geijerstam And I At Rydberg's
The Sylvie And Babs High-Thigh Companion
Spiral Insana
Lumb's Sister
Soliloquy For Lilith
Thunder Perfect Mind
Alice The Goon
A Missing Sense
Salt Marie Celeste
Angry Eelectric Finger: Spitch'cock One
Paranoia In Hi-Fi
The Surveillance Lounge 
Painting With Priests

Giacinto Scelsi - Hurqualia/Hymnos/Chukrum (1990)

Another trip into the strange, formless void of Giacinto Scelsi's mature period, previously explored early on in this blog when I first heard an album of his music.  This series of albums on the Accord label served as the first attempt at a major reappraisal of the bewitching, monochordal and microtonal Scelsi sound, just after his death in 1988.  So obscure had Scelsi became that nothing on this album had even been performed until the mid-late 80s.  A series of concerts, the rehearsals of which Scelsi oversaw in the final year of his life, and then these albums, kickstarted a long overdue and ongoing appreciation of his music. 

First up here is the four-part Hurqualia, with some of Scelsi's most dramatic and dynamic symphonic writing, focusing on the power of the brass and percussion.  Then there's the single-movement Hymnos, his longest self-contained piece with the grandest orchestral forces he wrote for (86 musicians), with Brucknerian influences but still centred on that unwavering, hypnotic Scelsi drone.  Closing the album is some of his most fearsome writing for string orchestra in another four-parter, Chukrum.  Truly stunning music for deep listening.

link
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Previously posted at SGTG: 
Quatro Pezzi Per Orchestra/Anahit/Uaxuctum
Tre Pezzi (Daniel Kientzy, saxophone)

Coil - Black Antlers (2004-6)

Jhonn Balance's tragic death amidst unfinished recordings meant that there was no clear-cut "last Coil album".  The original version of this one might've been the last Coil album released in Balance's lifetime, but even so it was presented as a work in progress; CDRs handed out on tour.  As far as I'm concerned, though, Black Antlers has always felt like just as fitting and satisfying an end to the Coil discography proper, as the more polished Ape Of Naples.

The Gimp (Sometimes) starts proceedings with a full five minutes of discomforting squiggles before settling down into a wearied lament, Sleazy & Thighpaulsandra's electronics reaching ever further into other dimensions.  The late-Coil collection of sardonic and surreal Balance narratives hits a high point with Sex With Sun Ra, and Wraiths And Strays captured how dynamic and exciting their live work had become.  In 2006, three more tracks were added by Sleazy to round off one of the most satisfying Coil releases, and most poignant in showing what they still had to give.

link
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Previously posted at SGTG:
Astral Disaster
Musick To Play In The Dark
...and the ambulance died in his arms

Charles Mingus - Changes One & Two (1975)

Some more late Mingus, in a pair of magnificent quintet records that were recorded at the same December 1974 sessions, then released separately and also as a double-album.  The opening minutes of Changes One find Mingus' political fire undimmed in the title Remember Rockefeller At Attica, but the music is incongrously bright and breezy.  Perhaps it started out with satirical lyrics a la Fables Of Faubus, who knows.  This is followed by the 17 sublime minutes of Sue's Changes, that rank among Mingus' most enduring music.  On the second half of the album, a riotous blues calls back to the Oh Yeah era, then the gorgeous Duke Ellington's Sound Of Love is the perfect closer.

Changes Two starts out following the same pattern as its sister album.  Free Cell Block F, 'Tis Nazi USA swings like it ought to have a much less weighty title, but in the cases of both openers Mingus will have known exactly what he was doing.  This is followed by another 17-minute epic, a freshly minted reworking of the Mingus classic Orange Was The Color Of Her Dress, Then Silk Blue.  Duke Ellington's Sound Of Love makes another appearance, this time with a Jackie Paris vocal, and is bookended by great compositions from band member Jack Walrath and arranger Sy Johnson.  Both albums are hugely recommended pinnacles of Mingus' career, alongside the other late classic Let My Children Hear Music.

Changes One
Changes Two
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Previously posted at SGTG:  
Oh Yeah  
The Black Saint And The Sinner Lady  
Mingus Plays Piano  
Let My Children Hear Music
Cumbia & Jazz Fusion
plus:  
Blue Moods  
Money Jungle  
BBC Proms Tribute by Metropole Orkest

John Adams - Shaker Loops/Light Over Water (1987 compi, rec. 1979 & 1983)

Early Adams at his hypnotic best, starting in 1979 with his well-known Shaker Loops in its original score for string septet.  Starting life as a piece called Wavemaker, intended to evoke a ripple effect on a body of water, it was retitled both in reference to the shaking effect of the strings and the ecstatic dancing of the Shaker sect.  Compare & contrast with the through-composed (the original here has a modular score), orchestrated version that had its recorded premiere under Edo DeWaart - links below.

This compilation pairs the original Shaker Loops with a 1983 dance commission, for Lucinda Childs' Available Light.  The music, which Adams titled Light Over Water, was originally released on its own LP in 1985, and to my ears is the Adams work that sounds closest to Philip Glass.  Much of this is due to the kind of music the dance work required, in a continuous arch rather than in small discrete movements. 

Adams also used synths as the primary instruments, then fleshed out the 46-minute piece with judicious use of a brass septet, to act as "the music's shadow".  For a much more in-depth discussion of Light Over Water, and Adams' relationship to electronic music, there's a great piece by Ingram Marshall here.  Adams might have found this a daunting commission, and wasn't a huge fan of working electronically, but the results were sublime.  Highly recommended.

link
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John Adams at SGTG:
The orchestral version of Shaker Loops
Grand Pianola Music 
The Chairman Dances, etc
Road Movies, etc
Harmonium etc (scroll past main post)

The Teddy Charles Tentet - s/t (1956)

Fresh from some inspiring times in Charles Mingus' Jazz Composers' Workshop, a session with Mingus and Miles Davis and some ambitious releases of his own, vibraphonist Teddy Charles pushed the boat out further when signing to Atlantic.  This January 1956 session took some inspiration from Mingus, some from Gil Evans' late 1940s work with Miles (Evans and George Russell are two of the arrangers here), and also from the likes of Stravinsky. 

All this made the ten-piece group's self-titled album highly sophisticated for its day, beating Miles to the punch by two years in the closing track's modal progression, and even looking forward to free jazz in The Emperor, Charles' most striking composition here.  All of the crack team of players are great here, with Charles himself best highlighted on vibes on Nature Boy, which also appeared on Blue Moods (link above).  Highly recommended.

link
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Iancu Dumitrescu/Ana-Maria Avram - Etoiles Brisees (1998)

An hour-long trip into the hellscape of Romanian spectralism's two greatest dark mages, featuring only four tracks - and only three pieces, as Iancu Dumitrescu on this release only contributed the title track, done two ways.  But there's still enough unhinged genius packed in here to get immersed in for the foreseeable future.  Basically the average Edition Modern CD then.

Etoiles Brisees is first presented as an entirely computer-music based sound world, by turns eerily subdued and subaquatic, then blasting full-on digital noise into your synapses.  Straight afterwards, the piece repeats in an orchestrated version, but still with some noticeable electronic elements.  Ana-Maria Avram's two contributions here are both full-bodied string orchestra torture of the most exquisite kind, with the ghostly drones, moans and creaks of Seconde Axe particularly recommended.

link
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Previously posted on SGTG:
ED.MN.1001 - Medium/Cogito
ED.MN.1002 - Au Dela De Movemur
ED.MN.1003 - Pierres Sacreés
ED.MN.1004 - Musique de Paroles
ED.MN.1005 - Galaxy
ED.MM.1006 - A Priori
ED.MN.1008 - Five Pieces
ED.MN.1009 - Ouranos II 
ED.MN.1010 - Meteors & Pulsars 
ED.MN.1011 - Musique Action '98
ED.MN.1014 - Orbit of Eternal Grace
ED.MN.1018 - Remote Pulsar
ED.MN.1019 - In Tokyo

Legendary Pink Dots - Asylum (1985)

Double album of dark psych-pop, post-punk prog weirdness and god knows what else, from Anglo-Dutch cult legends who are still on the go after 40 years.  This is the first album of theirs I've taken a chance on after being vaguely aware of them for ages, so any pointers as to where to go next would be much appreciated.  The attraction of this one from the mid 80s was the editing participation of one Steven Stapleton, which on listening appears to be limited to the strangest tracks at the end, but I could be wrong.

Whether or not Asylum is a good entry point to the Legendary Pink Dots, I loved it, and found it well structured - the short songs at the beginning gradually give way to more ambitious, longer tracks and finally full-on avant-garde insanity on the original Side 4.  The lazy description of this band might be that they're like a post-punk version of Barrett-era Floyd, which has a grain of truth, but there's so much more besides that.

For instance: love the violin sound (although I gather they had numerous lineup changes), Edward Ka-Spel's voice, especially on the spoken-word epic So Gallantly Screaming, and the two gorgeous tracks with a female lead vocal, from Attrition's Julia Niblock.  The keyboard sounds and production values might not be to everyone's taste, but for me they were spot on for an album of this style and vintage.  I'm looking forward to further exploration.

link
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Terry Riley - Shri Camel (1980)

Some more (see last two links below) of Terry Riley's just-intonation electric organ flights into deepest inner space.  Shri Camel began as a commission for Radio Bremen in 1975, with an early performance the following year; this CBS studio recording dates from 1978, and was finally released two years later.

This puts its sound closest to Descending Moonshine Dervishes, also dating from 1975 but not released until the early 80s.  By the mid 70s, Riley had fully integrated his earlier studies under Pandit Pran Nath into his tape delay (and then digital delay) sound on the organ, and could play ever more intricate counterpoint and variations over the ongoing pattern.  In the studio for Shri Camel, this unique Eastern-Western fusion was still all recorded live to 16-track - no overdubs, just Riley and the delay system.

The mind-melting sound that emerges works just as well here on the four shorter tracks required by a single LP as it did on Riley's hour-plus concerts.  Anthem Of The Trinity effectively acts as a 9-minute prologue, before the 11-minute Celestial Valley takes off in earnest, spinning endless notes into the cosmos.  The album's second half repeats the same formula, with the seven minutes of Across The Lake Of The Ancient Word setting the listener up for the epic finale of Desert Of Ice.

Live performance of Shri Camel, Holland Festival 1977

link
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Previously posted at SGTG:
In C
Rainbow In Cologne
Descending Moonshine Dervishes